Press Democrat, Feb 11, 2016 (emphasis added): Scientists and lawmakers foresee grim outlook for California’s ocean fisheries… the outlook is overwhelmingly grim, presenters said at an annual forum of the joint legislative Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture. “Something’s going on in the ocean, and it’s not right, and it doesn’t fit our historical understandings,” California Fish and Wildlife Director Chuck Bonham told members of the committe… Bonham noted stretches of coastline suddenly barren of sea urchins… [N]umerous anomalies… are growing increasingly apparent, Bonham said. “This should be an… alarm to the general public”… Bonham said… [S]everal witnesses Thursday forecast what most in the industry already have anticipated: a collapse, or near collapse, of key salmon runs in the state… “I cannot say this more bluntly,” [State Senator Mike McGuire] said. “We are facing a fishery disaster here in California”… U.S. Department of Commerce [is] considering a request by Gov. Jerry Brown to declare a fishery disaster…http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/5211805-181/scientists-and-lawmakers-foresee-grim?artslide=0
Ocean Beach Rag, Feb 18, 2016: California’s Crab and Salmon Fisheries Threatened By Historic Crisis… [O]fficials testified about the dire situation that the salmon and crab fishery is in at a recent forum at the State Capitol… “The salmon and crab fisheries are threatened by a historic crisis. We’re facing a fishery disaster” [said Senator Mike McGuire]… “We’ve gone from abundance to scarcity… “During the last two years, we’ve lost over 95 percent of the Sacramento River winter-run chinook and over 95 percent of the fall-run Chinook.”… things are expected to be even worse this year… Something’s going on in the ocean — State officials and scientists spoke on the unprecedented changes in the ocean believed to be impacting crab, salmon and other fish populations… These include the massive deaths of sea stars, the decline of the squid fishery, the closure of the sardine fishery, the decline of kelp habitat and the loss of most of the red sea urchins north of San Francisco recently…

Mad River Union, Feb 18, 2016: Ocean behavior alarming, puzzling… The following is one of several stories about the crab and fisheries calamities… [Bonham] testified that menacing changes are altering both marine biology and ecology and the changes do not fit historical understandings of ocean behavior. Bonham declared grimly, “This should be an exclamation alarm to the general public to stay aware and engaged in the ecological change going on in the ocean.”… [M]ost of the red urchin population has perished, moving from abundance to scarcity in just a few years. “Mile-long stretches of the North Coast [are] urchin barrens,” Bonham stated… There have emerged “very never-seen-before things“… The salmon outlook remains unfavorable… The Sacramento winter run “really raises the existential threat of extinction,” he testified… [T]oxic contamination generated by algal blooms may spread well beyond crabs and urchins, raising sinister unknowns, Bonham predicted warily. “Why not more and more species one right after another?” he asked…

Dr. Timothy Mousseau, Department of Biological Sciences, University of South Carolina,
published Oct 3, 2015:

18:30 in — “We don’t see these kind of patches of white feathers anywhere else around the world… Whats really interesting is that 2 years ago we started finding birds in Fukushima with patches of white feathers as well… The frequencies are increasing, its related to the radiation exposure… White spots, they first started noticing these white spots on these cows shortly after the disaster.”

30:30 in — “Fukushima… After 4 years of repeated sampling this is what we find: huge impacts, dramatically fewer birds in the areas of high radiation, many dramatically fewer species of birds as well.”

32:00 in — “Since it was July, I think I’ll… have to go with ‘Silent Summer’ effect… It’s really a dead zone. There are no butterflies, no birds. Very few, and it’s very, very clearly the result of the radiation contaminants.”

34:30 in — (Showing images of the radioactive contamination crossing the Pacific Ocean) “Why does it matter to you?… The reason is… it’s coming — it is coming.”

Russian gov’t news service (Sputnik), Mar 12, 2015: Many researchers initially believed radiation from the Fukushima nuclear disaster could be at the heart of the disease… Dr. Peter Raimondi of the University of California at Santa Cruz [believed] the power plant contaminated the water, propagating the disease which the simple immune system of the starfish would not be able to fight off… “One of the byproducts is obviously nuclear radiation discharge…” he added. Today, scientists are less convinced that Fukushima is to blame, citing the fact that [1] awareness of the disease predates the disaster, [2] the die-offs are observable on both US coasts, and [3] other marine life doesn’t appear to be affected.

[1] Is it a fact this disease predates the 2011 arrival of the Fukushima plume on the West Coast?

Melissa Miner, researcher who works for Dr. Raimondi (at 18:30): “The Olympic coast was the first place, in June 2013, where we saw the disease.”
Miner (at 4:45): “This is very different from prior events…It’s not associated w/ warm water … Populations really [got] hit hard over the winter, this has never happened… The other big difference… is the geographic extent is much, much larger than we’ve ever seen.”
[2] Is it a fact the die-offs are observable on both US coasts?

Miner (50:45 in): “I think it was just a few-month epidemic on the East Coast of the US… My feeling, because we have not heard a lot about it, is that it sort of disappeared. It just lasted a few months and then was gone.”
[3] Is it a fact other marine life doesn’t appear to be affected?

“Researchers are now keeping an eye on other echinoderms, such as sea urchins and sea cucumbers. Wasting has been observed in those animals… ‘We’re seeing urchins in southern California with lesions in areas where stars were dying’ [said Miner].” -Source
Miner (43:15 in): “People are really watching closely [if] it will spread… We’ve had isolated observations of sick urchins and sea cucumbers w/ lesions and other odd looking things.”
What about the reported surge in baby sea stars? “‘It’s not a coast-wide phenomenon at all,’ said Miner… as few as four of 70 long-term sites [have] greater than normal numbers… ‘I was trying really hard to find juveniles and I couldn’t find any,’ said [Chrissy McLean].” -Source

What about reports that wasting mystery is solved? “No one knows what might have triggered such widespread wasting, although scientists [published a paper identifying] densovirus… rather than environmental pollutants, such as the oft-suggested [Fukushima] radiation… They found the virus in a Connecticut aquarium where mass die-offs had not been observed, as well as in preserved sea stars from 1942… Miner, who is one of the paper’s authors [said] “It’s likely that other environmental factors have pushed stars to the limit” -Source